No Bed of Roses
by vulnerable88
Summary: Emmett's perspective and thoughts throughout Write A Lonely Solider.


A.N. Hi, readers! Well, here I am! Back after 3+ months! I just couldn't resist writing a one-shot about what Emmett might've been thinking during last night's episode (episode 19). Please let me know what you think! Btw, I don't own the characters or the show or the premise…All that is mine is the thoughts and some of the descriptions! Enjoy!

Life hadn't exactly been a bed of roses for Emmett Bledsoe recently. He got arrested, he had to sell his motorcycle, he moved in with his dad which caused friction between him and his mom, his parents had a public fight at an art exhibit, and he fought with his girlfriend…more than once. It seemed like nothing was going his way nowadays. On the bright side, he still had Daphne with him in school, and now that she had gotten together with Wilke (a relationship he, oddly enough, wasn't totally against), a lot of the weirdness between him and her had dissipated and things were back to normal…more or less.

That's why when Daphne missed first bell one Tuesday, he wondered what was up. She came in a few moments later, but appeared distracted. He confronted her about it the first chance he got.

"You missed first bell," he told her, as if she didn't know. "I was starting to think you were skipping."

She didn't look surprised by the question. Her answer, though, surprised him, for it was not what he had been expecting.

"Lost track of time," she signed. "I was watching the news."

He looked at her in confusion. Who loses track of time while watching the news? "What, somebody hack into Blake Lively's phone again?" he joked. He grinned at her, expected a smile or laugh in response. Instead, she looked very serious, and gave him a questioning look.

"Bay didn't tell you?" she asked.

He shook his head. Daphne looked even more concerned. _What could be going on? _Emmett wondered.

"A helicopter from Ty's unit went down in Afghanistan," she signed solemnly.

"Is he hurt or…?" Emmett sort of let his question drift off, not wanting to ask anything else.

"We don't know," Daphne responded. "All we know is soldiers were killed, but they haven't released the names." She paused for a moment. "Bay didn't say anything?" she asked again, almost incredulous.

Emmett paused. _It's hard for her to tell me anything when I've been avoiding her. _He knew everything that happened wasn't Bay's fault, especially his parents' fighting; it's just that there was nobody else around to bear the brunt of his emotions.

Instead of going into details about everything that had happened between them, Emmett just told Daphne, "We're kind of in a fight."

Just because they were in a fight, though, didn't mean that he didn't still love her. "How is she?" he asked, feeling guilty about not knowing the answer to that himself.

Daphne gave him a serious look. "You should talk to her." Leaving it at that, she briefly touched him on the shoulder and walked off.

Emmett's emotions were in turmoil. He wanted to go see Bay, he wanted to go and comfort her and be there for her, like she was for him. On the other hand, how does a guy go to his girlfriend, and say, "I'm here for you in your time of need, babe, when you're emotionally fragile about the fact that your ex-boyfriend, who I've already gotten jealous over, may or may not have died while serving our country, and even though I kind of haven't really spoken to you in a while because I was mad at you, but not really, just taking out my anger about my parents on you"?

Despite the conflicting feelings, Emmett knew he had to go and see her. He found her in her garage, not really doing much of anything, just standing there. He knocked on the door gently and she turned around. He stood there for a moment or two, unsure what to do, unsure what the protocol was in this type of situation. Then, he grabbed the bull by the horns and approached her, figuring something would hit him as he got closer to her.

Bay grabbed him around the neck and dragged him closer, hugging him tightly. His arms instantly wrapped around her, wordlessly communicating his love and comfort to her through the embrace.

_Man, it feels good to hold her again_, he thought. He knew it was selfish, but she was his girlfriend and he hadn't held her in so long. _And whose fault is that, buddy? _A voice in his head said. _Oh, shut up_, he told it, just trying to relish in the feeling of Bay's arms around him, momentarily forgetting the circumstances.

When she pulled away, it was clear that she'd been crying. "I'm so glad that you're here," she told him, emotionally.

"Daphne told me about Ty," he said, letting her know that it wasn't coincidence that he had shown up now. "You okay?" he asked, concerned. It was one of those stupid questions that it's practically mandated to ask in these situations, even though the answer is clear.

"No," she answered honestly. "What if it's him?"

"You can't go there," he told her, knowing it was futile but saying it anyway.

"Oh, I'm there already. One minute I'm trying to get used to the idea that he's gone so that I'll be prepared for it, and then the next…I didn't even know that he had enlisted until a few days before he left, and I still don't understand why he did it!" Even though he couldn't hear her, Emmett could tell that Bay's voice was breaking while she talked.

"To serve his country," he said.

"I know, but do you get it? Would you do it?" she asked him, an almost accusatory look on her face.

"I can't," he informed her. "Deaf. I'm not allowed."

He saw comprehension dawn on her and she slowly lowered herself to sit next to him. "I didn't know that," Bay said.

"So I guess we wait," he signed, "for news."

"Yeah," she said, and her face started to crumple again. "Which I'm not very good at." He saw her start to cry. "Ty usually responds to my emails pretty quickly."

Emmett was startled. _Emails? Bay's emails? To Ty_?

Determined not to dwell on those unsettling thoughts, though, Emmett simply responded with, "You've been emailing Ty?" And, though he wanted to ask her why she was emailing her ex-boyfriend, apparently on a fairly regular basis, he settled for the nonchalant, "I didn't know you could do that with troops in a war zone."

_Ok, I think I pulled that off calmly_, Emmett thought, proud that his true emotions hadn't come to the surface regarding that particular piece of news.

"Yeah," Bay signed, as if it was the most natural thing. "I mean, he has access to computers over there… but this is the longest that it's ever taken him to get back to me."

After Emmett left Bay's and went back home, he lay down on his bed and processed the information he'd gotten that day. Yes, he should've been doing homework, but he couldn't focus on that right now.

_Ok, so a helicopter from Ty's unit went down. Nobody's sure if he was on it. Bay (and Daphne) are really upset about the news. Daphne's upset because Ty is her friend. Bay's upset because Ty is her ex-boyfriend and she still cares about him? Ok, that makes sense. Like, if Bay and I ever broke up, _Emmett's chest tightened briefly at that thought, _and Bay heard something had happened to me, she'd be concerned because we had once dated. Yeah, that makes sense_.

Except that another part of Emmett's brain, the more jealous part and the part that was feeding on anxieties from observing the disintegration of his parents' relationship, interrupted his relatively calm thought process with more upsetting thoughts. _Or maybe it's because Bay still loves Ty. Maybe she never got over him. Maybe that's why when I confronted her about being serious with Ty, she didn't really give me a clear answer and then excused it away with, "Why does it matter? He's half a world away!" Maybe if Ty had never left… they never would've broken up. I thought Ty was the one with "good timing," but maybe __**I**__ was the one with good timing! Maybe Bay is just biding her time with me until her real boyfriend Ty comes back! Maybe if Ty's alive and he comes back, Bay will just dump me the second he gets back and go running back to him! _

These unsettling thoughts did not do much to reassure him about his relationship with Bay. After all, before this news about Ty had come about, Emmett and Bay had been in a fight, of sorts.

_No! I will not let myself go down that road! Just like I told Bay that she couldn't go there with her thoughts of Ty's death, I can't go there with these thoughts about Bay and Ty. Bay and I are together, no matter what happened to Ty._

With these contrasting thoughts fighting for attention in his head, Emmett fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next day, when Emmett saw Daphne, he wasted no time in asking her about her correspondence with Ty.

"Have you been emailing him?" he wanted to know.

"Maybe once or twice after he left, but not really since then," Daphne answered, confirming some of his fears. "Now I wish I had been."

"So it's just Bay," Emmett signed, not bothering to keep the annoyance or jealousy out of his gestures.

Daphne grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. He looked at her, annoyed. "Say it," she told him, a small, wry, expectant smile on her face.

"Am I allowed to be mad that Bay and Ty have been emailing all this time?" he asked immediately, knowing that Daphne knew that's what had been going through his head. "I mean, under the circumstances," he clarified.

Daphne gave him a pitying look. "Not really," she said. "Ty's a million miles away from everything he knows. I'm sure Bay was just emailing him so he'd have a lifeline to home." _Yeah, but maybe Ty doesn't know that Bay's just emailing him as a lifeline to home. Maybe Ty thinks that Bay's emailing him as a lifeline to __**her. **_Emmett's dark thoughts almost prevented him from seeing what Daphne said next.

"And besides," she continued, "she's crazy about you."

Emmett looked down, almost ashamed. He had never been so unsure and insecure of himself before! He _knew_ that Bay was crazy about him; he shouldn't need Daphne to tell him that! Yet he did.

"I know," he told her, and he continued on, deciding he'd better be honest with her, in hopes that it'd help him be honest with himself. "With everything going on at home, I think I'm putting too much pressure on me and Bay. I'm probably making too big a deal out of it." _Probably. Maybe. Maybe not? _Ugh, Emmett hated feeling like this. He hated having these conflicting thoughts racing through his mind, trying to gain his attention.

"It's understandable," Daphne smiled.

"See you in study hall," Emmett responded, hoping he'd get himself and his thoughts sorted by then.

Emmett decided that the best way to reaffirm his confidence in his relationship with Bay was to go see her, bringing her a present to distract her.

He found her in her garage, again, holding a paintbrush, but not doing anything with it. She was just sitting on the couch. He touched her shoulder when he came in, alerting her to his presence, and then presenting her with the blue bag.

She looked at him, and on her face was the closest thing he'd seen to a smile for a little while. "What is this?" she asked, clearly surprised. She took the comic book out of the bag, and looked up at him.

"Thought you could use a little inspiration," he said. "It's that book I was telling you about. The one about the girl who time travels and hunts demons." He gazed at Bay, trying to communicate his feelings for her with her eyes. "She reminds me of you," he said, a smile on his face.

Bay examined the cover of the comic book more closely. "If I had double D's built into my chest," she teased, and laughed a little.

The nervousness he'd been feeling (but had been denying) since he'd entered her garage disappeared, calmed by her appreciation and her smile.

He sat down on the arm of the couch, a grin on his face acknowledging the point Bay had made. "Yeah, they don't really explain why those are necessary to fight demons…but the artwork is amazing."

She looked down at it again, a soft smile on her face. "It's really cool. Thank you," she expressed. She started to put the book and bag to the side, but then Emmett saw her all of a sudden turn sharply to the door. He looked in that direction, too, and saw John standing there. John held up a hand in acknowledgement of presence, saying, "Emmett."

Emmett nodded back in greeting.

"I just heard from General Riekkin," Emmett saw John say. "Ty is fine. It wasn't him."

Emmett looked to Bay, swallowing in uncertainty at her reaction. He saw pure relief break over her face. "He's ok," she said, smiling. "He's really okay?" she asked again, clearly disbelieving at the news.

"Yes, he is," John smiled back, seeing his daughter's relief and happiness on her face.

Emmett sat there and watched while Bay embraced her father in joy. John looked at him, as if he expected Emmett to be sitting there enjoying how happy Bay was at the news.

"I'm so glad," Emmett signed, a small smile on his face, and his uncertainties about his relationship with Bay and her relationship with Ty swooping back in on a tidal wave.

_Okay, so Ty is alive. That's a good thing. Bay is happy, Daphne is happy, everyone is happy. Everyone except me. _

As he thought that last thought, another part of his brain recognized and rebelled at the selfishness in that thought. _Ty is a good guy; you know that! Back before this all happened, before everyone found out about the switch, you liked Ty! He was Daphne's friend and an all around good guy! You should be happy that he's alive! _

The other part of him, though, that darn jealous and anxious because of his parents' divorce part, wasn't that rational. _Bay was too happy to find out that Ty is alive. She clearly still has feelings for him! She shouldn't be emailing her ex-boyfriend when she's with you, no matter where her ex-boyfriend is! _

The rational part argued back, _Bay said she's in love with __**you!**__ She's been kissing __**you**__ all these months since you've been together! Ty has been thousands of miles away, fighting for this country! Instead of resenting the guy, you should be respecting him!_

The irrational part wasn't going to let that go. _Yeah, but maybe now that Bay knows Ty is alive, she'll realize how much he meant to her and she'll dump you for him! What if she does that, huh? What if she emails him now and signs it, "Love, Bay" like she sometimes does with emails to you? What if she decides that things with you are too hard, that she's tired of learning to sign and speak another language, and she'd rather be with the guy who did the honorable thing and signed up to serve his country? __**You**__ can't even do that! _

Even though he knew he should be focusing on the rational thoughts, the irrational side of his brain kept sucking him back in, and Emmett's stomach dropped at the thoughts going through his head. What if that _did_ happen? What if Bay dumped him for Ty?

Once again, he fell into an uneasy sleep, plagued with dreams of Bay dumping him and then kissing Ty who, as often happens in dreams, mysteriously materialized out of nowhere.

When Bay texted him the next day, asking if he wanted to come over, he immediately texted back, "See you soon."

This time, instead of spending time in her garage, he and Bay were hanging out in her room. Apparently John and Kathryn were cool with it as long as the door remained open.

She kissed him when she first saw him and Emmett held on a little tighter than usual, putting a little more emotion into the kiss.

They each took a seat on her bed, and Bed started talking, clearly excited about something. "So, when your new bike is finished, I thought that we could dress her up in something like this."

She showed him her designs and looked up at him, clearly anticipating his reaction. He just looked at her, unable to muster up the energy to even pretend that he was into it.

"Or not," she said, clearly thrown off a little. "Uh, maybe we could do something more American Chopper? Something with ghost flames?" She smiled questioningly at him, clearly uncertain as to why he wasn't reacting.

He shook his head, "That's not it."

She glanced back at her drawings and then reluctantly placed them aside. "What is it?"

"Are we going to pretend that you haven't been email buddies with Ty all this time?" he confronted her, cutting right to the chase.

"It's nothing," she denied. He just looked at her, his brow furrowed and his eyes piercing. "Really," she affirmed. "I promise," she said, seeing that his expression wasn't changing. "But I'm flattered that you went to the jealousy place."

Her last comment riled him up more. _I'm scared for our relationship, wondering why she's emailing an ex-boyfriend on a regular basis, and she's making light of this? _

"Don't act like this nothing," he told her, starting to get off the bed, unable to sit still any longer.

"And now we're at the angry place. Wow," she said, clearly impressed at how quickly he went from one to the other.

"What do you expect? I find out you've been secretly talking to your ex-boyfriend!" Emmett accused, his body tense.

"Ok, it wasn't a secret," Bay said, getting up off of the bed, too.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Emmett demanded, exasperated. He was so tired of this. He was so tired of feeling like his relationship with Bay was about to tip over the edge of a cliff.

"Because it wasn't a big deal," Bay said, clearly getting defensive.

"Then let me read the emails," Emmett shot back. He knew that was kind of unreasonable and rather out of line, but he didn't care. He wanted to know that his girlfriend was _his_. Was that too much to ask for? He wanted to see for himself that none of the emails from Ty were expressing how much he missed Bay and couldn't wait to see her. He wanted to see for himself that none of Bay's emails were expressing those things either.

"What?" Bay was outraged. "No!"

Her immediate no brought to the forefront of his mind all of his thoughts about Bay breaking up with him for Ty, Bay emailing Ty and saying she couldn't wait until he got home so they could resume their relationship, Ty emailing Bay that he loved her.

"Why not?" Emmett retorted. "If they're no big deal?" He wanted to see them for himself.

"I would not show your emails to me to anybody else!" Bay said, digging herself in deeper.

The nasty and jealous part of Emmett's brain immediately picked up on that comment. _Oh, she's comparing your emails to her to Ty's emails to her! Seems like you're not as different from Ty in Bay's eyes as you'd like to think, huh? She'll probably dump you within the next few days and you'll be all alone. Bay will get back together with Ty when he comes home and you'll just be the sucker who fell in love with her and then got your heart crushed! Just like your Mom and Dad…everything seemed fine and then they decide to get a divorce and Dad's got a girlfriend who's half his age and Mom's bitter and angry! Except that you're going to be the bitter and angry person this time!_

"Because those are private!" Emmett exclaimed. _And your emails to Ty should not be private, Bay! _He said inside his head, but never expressing.

She huffed at him and then agreed, albeit resentfully. "Fine."

She marched over to her computer, typed for a couple of moments. He followed, standing next to her with his arms folded. She pointed to the screen. "Ok, uh, here's the one where he talks about how you have to keep hydrated in the desert."

She clicked to the next email. "Oh, here's the one where he talks about MRE's, they come with flameless ration heaters! It's very scandalous!"

Emmett knew that letting her keep on going wasn't the best idea, but he let her continue. To be honest, he really _was_ starting to feel better by knowing what was in the emails, no matter how unhealthy that sounded or actually was.

Bay continued. "And, oh! This one is a bombshell! This is the one where I tell him about the physics paper that I had to write! We're practically sexting!"

Emmett had heard enough. He also couldn't stand her using that term when describing her and Ty, even though it was sarcastically. Still. He didn't like it.

"Stop," he told her, but she was clearly on a roll, anger and indignation preventing her from stopping.

"No, let's keep going," she insisted.

Even though he tried to grab her arm and told her to stop again, she ignored him, and clicked on the next email. He wasn't even going to look at it until he saw her face pale a little. He looked at the screen and thought he must be seeing things. That looked like Bay's street art…

Emmett bent over to get a closer look. _No, this can't be. This can't be what it looks like. Bay's street art is a secret between __**her**__ and __**me**__. It's practically one of the pillars of our relationship! Ty can't know about it…he can't. _

Emmett kept looking at the picture of the girl in the picture, sure that his eyes must be playing tricks on him. _Look away, Emmett, just look away, _a voice in his head told him.

He felt the pain of betrayal break over his body in waves. It started in his heart, then extended to the rest of his body, spreading to his face. "He knows about your street art," he asked Bay, oddly calm when asking her this momentous question.

_Please tell me no, Bay. Please say that there's a misunderstanding, that this is just a sick joke. Please say that your street art is still just ours, _he mentally begged Bay.

"He caught me doing one," Bay admitted.

The pain and betrayal broke over him again, fresh. "Is this something you do with all your boyfriends?" he signed quickly and furiously. "Does Liam have a Hammer Girl in his locker?"

During all of this, the same thought kept replaying in Emmett's head. _I can't believe this. I can't believe this. I can't believe this. _

"That is not fair," Bay exclaimed. "You know I can't sign that fast. Just give me a chance to respond!"

"Did you even tell him about me?" Emmett asked, hoping that at least _that_ answer was yes. "That we were dating?"

Bay became flustered. "I honestly don't remember."

He looked at her astonished. _What does that even mean? _

"He's fighting a war that is half a world away! I did not think that it was important!" she insisted.

If it was even possible, his heart broke even more at that. "Really?" he asked. He looked at her, pain evident in his eyes and on his face. "I thought we were important."

Bay kept looking at him, not certain what to reply. He didn't bother waiting for her to figure it out. He walked out.

A.N. Hi, readers! Ok, wow, this was kind of long! I hope you enjoyed! I'm thinking about possibly adding another chapter about his feelings….I'm not sure, though. One of the sneak peeks for next week's episode is Bay/Emmett related (hooray) and shows them kind of sorting things out…so I thought maybe I'd just make up my own little ending type thing…What do you readers think?


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